Class divisions in healthcare. Yes, what about Malaysia?

The so called Dr. Azly Rahman really outdone himself with the latest article he wrote. In it, he assumed that the healthcare system  in Malaysia is much worse than that of the United States of America.

After hailing the Americans for finally realising that cheap healthcare should be made available to all Americans, Azly Rahman continued on to criticise Malaysia which in his mind, is preventing the poor people from accessing the healthcare system.

He wrote:

But what is the situation in Malaysia, as we have evolved as a modern state enculturalised by happenings in other advanced countries such as the US?

How do we care for the sick? Essentially is there also a class system in our healthcare system? Do the poor get the same treatment as the wealthy members of parliament or those in the list of billionaires?

With the proliferation of private hospitals, are we creating the foundations of a class system that will inherit the problems the Americans are trying to resolve?

Or is this merely a natural progression of an economic system that is also predatory in culture – that the rich will be richer and the poor growing in numbers?

With the urge for Malaysian private hospitals to venture into ‘medical tourism’, will our good doctors abandon their Hippocratic Oath in favour of professional hypocrisy?

Marx would say that we are defined by the economic condition we are in – we are homo economicus. I suppose how we live and how we die and how we are taken care of in-between this period of ‘borrowed time’, depends on how the state defines what human rights mean vis-a-viz our ability to pay for healthcare and how we lived our lives as a economic beings.

We must consider that each human being is a cog in the wheel of Capital. Those who own the machines of production oftentimes influence policies through political-economic arrangements.

A wealthy country such as Malaysia that prides itself on tall buildings and a growing number of billionaires ought to start reflecting on the need to ensure that each citizen will have affordable healthcare.

One wonders what the limit of wealth creation is and where the moral dimension is in capitalism, when the rich control the lives of the poor.

By shaping ideology and creating installations to change the social relations of production – and by doing this through the control of mind, media, machinery, and materials – we expect that wealth is to be shared. Socialism for the rich must be replaced with capitalism for the poor.

It’s 11pm here in New York. The historic Bill has just been passed, 219 to 212 in the House. God bless the life of 32 million more Americans. Let Malaysia learn from this victory!

Has Azly Rahman lost the ability to think?

It is the US that should learn from Malaysia on the proper ways to do things. Here in Malaysia, even the poor can have access to a good medical treatment. Just go into any government clinics and hospitals. How much are they charging you?

Only RM1 if you are a Malaysian. RM50 if you are a foreigner. Do you think if you require medical surgery, the government clinics and hospitals will turn their backs on you should you cannot afford to pay? Of course not.

In the US, if you do not have any health insurance, no hospitals or clinics will treat you. This is testified by Azly Rahman himself:

“I know friends who do not have health insurance and who question the human rights dimension of it – right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, endowed by the Creator who insist that ‘all men are created equal’ and cautioned by the Enlightenment thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau that “… everything is good in the hands of the Author of Things and everything degenerates in the hands of Man”.

From the point of view of the Democrats, the health insurance system is broken and in deep crisis. Millions cannot get proper medical health. The insurance system is predatory. Expanding health coverage and lowering prescription drug prices, and giving rebates to insurance companies are the main features of this proposal.

From the Republicans’ point of view, Americans need health reform but not to the point of bankrupting the country. A Bill which covers the cost of abortion is the controversial part of it; that Americans must not pay for those who do not have the respect for life. The Bill is said to be a wrong approach that will make winners and losers in the system. Essentially it will open up other complications in virtually all aspects of the system.”

As an American, you have to fork out hundreds of dollars, regardless if you are sick or not, to be able to get free medical treatment. Does the poor people here in Malaysia have to pay thousands in insurance premium just to get free cough medicine from the clinics’ counter?

The problem with America is its capitalistic system. Greed is good. Unabated competition and unregulated money making schemes are the panacea for human nature.

It is the pinnacle of all philosophical wisdom that to practise it, is the ultimate goal of all Americans in this world. Hence, you have silly old men in expensive suits walking about in the power halls in Washington D.C., dictating the social dogma of the American Way.

At one end, you have the Democrats, which after decades of fattening themselves from the profits of war, finally comprehending the profiteering ill effects of their insurance system.  And only in 2010, they managed to expand the health coverage? A pat on the back for them, or a knock on the head? You decide.

At the other end, the ravenous Republicans, with their equally expensive suits decided that giving more money to the public is a bad thing because, the country will go bankrupt. This line of argument exposes the fact that the US has no money at all. Mainly because all the money meant for the rakyat, is being used to finance wars and other long term projects which may not yield expected returns.

Financing mega projects like the Iraq War or the war against terror in Afghanistan has used up all their reserves. You can bet that come next year, a major war will erupt just to cover this new healthcare budget.

For Azly Rahman to claim that Malaysia is worse off than the Americans is a con job indeed. Why is he trying to tell Malaysians to learn  from the Americans about something bad they had done all these years? It is the Americans who should have followed our more humane approach in serving our people.

The capitalistic nature of the US government feels no guilt or remorse when over the past decades, millions of their people cannot even access cheap medical treatment. Millions Azly. Millions! How many had died because they cannot afford minor surgeries such as appendectomy?

And only now, when a liberal fascist President like Obama came along, a socialist approach like this was approved. And to think it was approved with a razor thin majority showed us that the American Senate, is one greedy lot.

212 senators still think that depriving 32 millions Americans (that’s more than Malaysia’s whole population) of cheap medical welfare is a good thing to do!

All hail America right?

But the reality is, even this new healthcare bill which was passed by the Senate, is not a perfect bill of health reforms that one should expect. There are still nowhere near what we have here in Malaysia. For example, this bill does not cover foreign immigrants where they have no access to the healthcare system. We do.

And, people still have to buy health insurance to get free treatment whereas here in Malaysia, if the filthy rich Khalid Ibrahim wants to get a treatment in government clinics, he will still get it, just buy paying RM1.

Azly Rahman asked questions which any sane Malaysians can answer with a resounding NO.

Above all, we already are reflecting on the need to ensure that each citizen will have affordable healthcare. It has been done for decades here in Malaysia. Is Azly Rahman delusional?

For the man of his stature, that article is redundant at best. It was so irrelevant that the only point we can see from that article is  just a form of political posturing towards the nature of the opposition in Malaysia; oppose anything even if the act of them opposing is without any merit.

For how else could he wrote that article without even being cognisant to our healthcare system which is way better than the Americans?

Sure enough, Lim Kit Siang, who has a law degree, copied Azly Rahman’s article and thought that it could be a bonus point for Pakatan Rakyat. Just look at the poor souls that lap the article up. Giving misperceptions are the modus operandi for Pakatan Rakyat. Instead of being mature and give credit where it’s due, they relish any opportunity to degrade the government albeit, with a wrong assumption.

I guess even with a law degree, can’t save you from being less intelligent.

Yes, there is a class division in America’s healthcare system. And Lim Kit Siang asked, what about Malaysia?

Yes, what about Malaysia?!

Only a moron will answer that negatively.

It is the Americans who should emulate the affordable healthcare sytem of a developing country like us. Not the other way around. It took them several decades to rectify this capitalistic system. And we should learn from this ‘victory’? Get real.

All hail America!

Yeah right…